Music to Navigate A Life

My wedding... God, what a bloody awful day that was. We'd caught the back-end of some major storm, As we left the church, in a soaking shivering huddle, the organist hit the third verse of MORNING HAS BROKEN.

‘Mine is the sunlight. Mine is the morning.’

And suddenly, out came the sun. All the planets aligned in heaven and sunbeams danced over the arc of a rainbow. I swear everyone gasped. We knew, at that precise moment, that God meant us to be together, forever.

I WANT TO BREAK FREE, from QUEEN. She'd played that one to death, all through the murderous run-up to the divorce. It’s still difficult to hear it, even now.

BEDSHAPED, by KEANE, told me that I’d fallen in love again. It’s our song. The world is truly a beautiful place. Nothing will ever go wrong for me again.

'A curtain is closing in her deep brown eyes. It's like someone's built a wall. And through the very last cracks, Anna extends her hand, and a little girl calls. Please don't let me fall.'

I feel the tears about to come once more.

I'M NOT IN LOVE. The boys of 10cc had written this one just for me, all about my first love - you know, that first cut, the cut that that’s always the deepest. She’d bought me the single, and the world had changed completely because now I knew what real love was. What I didn’t know though, was that first love lasts a lifetime, and that it tortures you, and that it ruins you for other people, and that you'll never be the same person, ever again. I also didn’t know then, that a song could say one thing, yet mean the absolute opposite.

MEMORY OF A FREE FESTIVAL... Well, Mr BOWIE knew what a music festival was, and they were not like these ones we’re forced to endure today, the ones where middle-class morons take along their plug-in picnic baskets and their own fucking fridges. Jesus someone, gimme strength.

SMOKE ON THE WATER - DEEP PURPLE. This is the riff you learn on your first electric guitar, the guitar that was made in the year you were born. That guitar, this riff; the only enduring constants in your life.

So, there you have it... songs are signposts, and that’s how you use music to navigate a life.